There’s so much to share from my latest war tax resistance organizing trip, I’m not even sure of where to begin. So I’ll share some tidbits and then if you have additional questions, please comment or email me.

Most Relaxed Point

The first stop of my field organizing trip was perhaps the most peaceful. I arrived in Western PA amid rolling green hills and a garden full of wildflowers. Karen and Michael Bagdes-Canning hosted me for a home presentation on war tax resistance as an avenue for challenging white supremacy. After a delicious bowl of chili we had a great discussion with a group of people who are involved with local organizing around environmental, healthcare, and peace issues. Many of them were familiar faces from when I was doing organizing against fracking and pipelines throughout Pennsylvania. Nice to see old friends in a new context.

Most Effective Point

Hmmm, it’s always a bit hard to gauge but I think the most effective part of the trip was my presentation at the “Solidarity and Fightback: Building Resistance to US-led War, Militarism, and Neofascism” Conference in Toronto. The conference was organized by the International League of Peoples Struggle and brought together people who are involved in resistance struggles from around the world, from the Philippines to Kurdistan to Oakland. It was inspiring to hear the work of, in particular, youth activists who are working for true system change and building connections across huge divides.

I was on a panel discussion of radical activists from the United Snakes of America as well as Klanada. There were about 30 people in attendance, almost all of whom had never heard about war tax resistance, and were excited to know that this form of civil disobedience “in the belly of the beast” was alive and well. There are a number of people who are now wanting to organize presentations in their local communities (in particular, organizers who came to the conference from the Bay Area in California). I also got to meet Monica Moorehead which was a life goal! Always inspired by her organizing and life’s work.

Most Stressed Point

Partly from my own doing, I didn’t have any firm housing lined up for when I was in Toronto. I had heard from one of the conference organizers that they were working on it, but hadn’t gotten any confirmation. So I ended up driving 16 hours from Minneapolis to Toronto without any housing. Oh, and also no phone or email because I couldn’t get service once I crossed the border. I thought about stopping in Detroit and driving the rest of the way in the morning, but the folks I know there were either out of town or I couldn’t get in touch with them. I also tried to set up an AirBnb thing ahead of time, but the host never confirmed so that was no longer an option.

So I just kept driving, past Climax, Michigan which is a real place, and arrived in Drake’s hometown at 1:30 AM bumping Controlla and totally exhausted. Needless to say I found a dark sidestreet in a random neighborhood and passed out in the car. I woke up shivering a few hours later (it’s 50 degrees in Toronto in August apparently), so went to go find a Tim Horton’s (or “Timmies” for us Canucks) to try to warm up and find some wifi to get directions to the conference. It worked out eventually, but with a cramped neck and a grumpy Sam.

Personal Favorite Point

I stopped for a bit in Cincinnati, Ohio to visit some friends there and got to cuddle with their adorable puppy. But my favorite moment was once I arrived back in the United Snakes of America (coming over the “peace bridge” into Buffalo ironically enough). After another “Aghhh, I don’t have a map of Buffalo State University” hectic directions search again, I joined up with Vicki Ross from the Western NY Peace Center for her “talking peace” radio show on the university station. It was a solid conversation talking about everything from systemic racism and war tax resistance to fracking to trans issues. Unfortunately, I don’t have a recording of it, but it was nice to chat about a lot of important issues near and dear to my heart.

Post by Sam Koplinka-Loehr

Unfortunately with our website in transition (yay transitions!), we are having trouble uploading new photos at the moment. You can check out some photos of the ILPS conference here and here. So I will try to add photos back in at a later date.

The post There And Back Again: Organizing on the Road first appeared on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.

The post There And Back Again: Organizing on the Road appeared first on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.

MLK was inspired by the war tax resistance of Henry David Thoreau and stated that, “As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest.” He stated furthermore:

When I went to Morehouse as a freshman in 1944, my concern for racial and economic justice was already substantial. During my student days I read Henry David Thoreau’s essay “On Civil Disobedience” for the first time. Here, in this courageous New Englander’s refusal to pay his taxes and his choice of jail rather than support a war that would spread slavery’s territory into Mexico, I made my first contact with the theory of nonviolent resistance. Fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system, I was so deeply moved that I reread the work several times.

I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest. The teachings of Thoreau came alive in our civil rights movement; indeed, they are more alive than ever before. Whether expressed in a sit-in at lunch counters, a freedom ride into Mississippi, a peaceful protest in Albany, Georgia, a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, these are outgrowths of Thoreau’s insistence that evil must be resisted and that no moral man can patiently adjust to injustice.

quote from the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute

This day we are spending five hundred thousand dollars to kill every Vietcong soldier. Every time we kill one we spend about five hundred thousand dollars while we spend only fifty-three dollars a year for every person characterized as poverty-stricken in the so-called poverty program, which is not even a good skirmish against poverty.

Not only that, it has put us in a position of appearing to the world as an arrogant nation. And here we are ten thousand miles away from home fighting for the so-called freedom of the Vietnamese people when we have not even put our own house in order.

—Martin Luther King, Jr., Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution

quote from the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute

Read more about war tax resistance during the 1960s here.

The post Martin Luther King, Jr. on War and Civil Disobedience first appeared on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.

The post Martin Luther King, Jr. on War and Civil Disobedience appeared first on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.